


Waiting For You

by complicationstoo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Kisses, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Happy Ending, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, M/M, MIT Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27111628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/complicationstoo/pseuds/complicationstoo
Summary: “Would you kiss me?” Tony asks.“Is this a hypothetical question?”“No.” Tony sits up, resting his chin on his knees and wrapping his arms around his shins. “Will you kiss me right now? I don’t want to be unkissed anymore.”Rhodey laughs it off. "Ask me again when you're older."
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Comments: 26
Kudos: 193





	Waiting For You

**Author's Note:**

> I've never done ironhusbands before, so let me know what you think!

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

Rhodey glances up from his textbook, directing his attention to the source of the question. Tony is laying on his small bed, knees bent as he tosses a bouncy ball up in the air and catches it repeatedly. He doesn’t know how to keep still, but at least this entertainment source doesn’t catch on fire. Small victories. 

“Yes.”

Tony grabs the ball out the air and holds it, looking over at Rhodey. “Who?”

“A few people.”

He looks back down at the textbook, trying to refocus on the set of equations he needs to memorize by tomorrow afternoon. Tony doesn’t let him. 

“When was the first?”

Rhodey spins around in his desk chair. There’s no such thing as ignoring Tony Stark, try as he might. (Though, admittedly, he doesn’t try very hard.)

“I was fifteen. It was at my homecoming dance sophomore year.”

Tony frowns, “You went to dances?”

Rhodey shrugs, “Sure. Everyone did.”

Tony’s face does that thing where he’s trying to make sense of something. His nose scrunches a bit, forehead wrinkling as his brow knits together. He has his glasses on, even though he hates them, and coupled with the expression, they have the effect of making him look younger than his fifteen years. Innocent looking in a way that Rhodey knows he isn’t.

“Why are you asking?”

Tony bites his lip. “I haven’t kissed anyone before.”

It’s Rhodey’s turn to be confused. “That can’t be true.”

Tony’s cheeks turn red, and his mouth forms a thin line. Rhodey explains himself quickly before he has the chance to get defensive. “I just mean that there’s all those rumors. Not that I believe them, but I figured, well, they started somewhere.”

It’s a terrible explanation, probably worse than just letting the original statement stand on its own. Tony turns a steel-eyed glare on him. “They started because someone thought it would be a good way to get their fifteen minutes of fame.”

“Sorry, I didn’t really mean it like that,” Rhodey says gently. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Tony’s face softens a bit. He isn’t used to receiving apologies, Rhodey’s learned, and he doesn’t quite know what to make of them. They always work a little better than they should as a result. It makes Rhodey feel like he’s taking advantage of him every time he gets Tony’s easy forgiveness, but he doesn’t know how to change that. 

“That’s okay,” Tony sighs. He turns the bouncy ball around in his hand a few times, watching the swirling pattern move. “It’s weird, though, right? That I haven’t before?”

“Why would it be weird?”

“Everyone else here has done it. I’m basically the only one who hasn’t.”

“You’re fifteen, and everyone else is older, Tones. You’re not supposed to be doing all the things they’re doing.”

Tony doesn’t listen to that comment, moving right along to what Rhodey now sees is the point of this conversation, “Would you kiss me?”

Rhodey raises his eyebrows, “Is this a hypothetical question?”

“No.” Tony sits up, resting his chin on his knees and wrapping his arms around his shins. “Will you kiss me right now? I don’t want to be unkissed anymore.”

“That’s not a word,” Rhodey says, mostly to deflect away from the actual question. 

“Sure it is. I just used it in a sentence.”

“It’s still a bad reason to kiss someone.”

“Are you telling me you had a good reason to kiss your first?”

Rhodey nods, “I liked her.”

“I like you,” Tony points out.

“Not like that, you don’t,” Rhodey smiles fondly, shaking his head. “You’re supposed to kiss someone because you want to be with them, not because you want to get your first over with. Also, no offense, but you’re a little too young to be kissing anyone that goes here. Me included.”

Tony scoffs, “It’s just a kiss, Rhodey. I’m not asking you to fuck me.”

“Hey, language.”

Tony rolls his eyes, “What did you want me to say? Make love? That’s gross, honeybear.”

“We’re not talking about this.”

Rhodey turns back in his chair, but he should’ve known better. He’s two words into a sentence when he feels Tony’s arms snaking around his shoulders and his sharp chin jutting into his scalp. 

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” He can hear Tony’s grin in the words. “Just tell me why you won’t kiss me.”

“I already told you. You’re too young, and you want it for the wrong reasons.”

“What if I wanted it for the right reasons?”

Rhodey laughs it off, then says, “Can you find someone else to harass with this shit? I’ve got a midterm to study for, and you’re not helping.”

“Come on,” Tony whines. “Answer the question.”

Rhodey tosses his pen down and spins the chair around again, making Tony take a step back. Their height difference is less pronounced this way, with Tony standing and Rhodey sitting in front of him. When they’re both standing, Tony is almost half a foot below him, his hair falling just below Rhodey’s chin. 

“Ask me again when you’re older.”

Tony gets a determined look on his face, squaring his jaw and holding his chin up high. “You know what, I think I will.”

Rhodey shakes his head, “Alright man, you do that.”

***

Rhodey forgets about the conversation shortly after it happens. Nothing changes between them to make him remember it. Tony still gives him abominations for nicknames, steals Rhodey’s coffee when he finishes his own in one breathless drink, and throws himself into Rhodey’s bed when he’s feeling clingy. Rhodey still lets him do all of it, and sometimes returns the favor. 

They separate for the summer. Rhodey goes home to Philly, and Tony returns to New York. They email occasionally, whenever Tony needs to complain about something his father is making him do and when Rhodey needs to blow off steam about his shitty summer job. Rhodey sends him a card and a package of cookies from Mama Rhodes on his sixteenth birthday and in return receives a long winded email about how she’s the best woman on Earth. Rhodey’s inclined to agree. 

Rhodey walks into their shared dorm room on the move in day, ready to start their sophomore year. The room is bigger this time, with its own private bathroom that Rhodey knows Tony must have used some influence to get them. It’s their second year as roommates, and just a month shy of their anniversary of becoming friends. 

If anyone had asked him on last year’s move in day if he would be living with Tony Stark after the year was up, he would have laughed in their face. But that was before he got to see the real Tony underneath all the bravado. Now, he can’t imagine having someone else as his roommate. Someone else’s habits to adjust to, someone else’s slightly crazy mixing with his own. He and Tony go well together, and that surprised no one more than him. 

He’s looking forward to seeing Tony in person again after three and half months apart. He misses his best friend, and emails just weren’t cutting it anymore. It’s different when he can’t see Tony’s face, because half of the actual message is there, rather than in the words. Tony never quite says exactly what he means, but his face always does. 

Rhodey turns around from where he’s putting away t-shirts at the sound of the door unlocking. A smile is already on his face, but it falters slightly because  _ who the fuck is that? _

“Platypus!” Tony grins, dropping his bag from his shoulder and bounding across the room in an instant. 

The arms that wrap around him are stronger than Rhodey remembers them being, more muscular. His hair is a little shorter, less floppy than it used to be. Most of the baby fat is gone from his cheeks, leaving behind high, sculpted cheekbones. When Tony tells him that he missed him, Rhodey notes that his voice is a little deeper, too. 

But the most distinct difference has Rhodey stunned. 

“When the fuck did you get so tall?”

“Language,” Tony teases, pulling back from the hug. Rhodey has to tilt his chin up to look him in the eye. 

“What the fuck?”

Tony laughs, shrugging, “Finally got that growth spurt everyone kept saying would happen. It’s cool, isn’t it? I’m taller than you now.”

Rhodey sputters for a moment, processing it all. Where the hell did his pocket-size roommate go?

“Barely,” Rhodey says when he manages to recover. 

Tony puts his elbow on Rhodey’s shoulder, using him as an armrest, and the sound Rhodey makes is indignant. He shoves the arm off of him, making Tony laugh again. 

“Don’t be jealous, sour patch. Maybe you’ll get one, too.”

“Shut up,” Rhodey says, trying to make his voice neutral. 

Tony’s smile is a permanent fixture as he unpacks his stuff on his side of the room, but Rhodey still doesn’t know how to feel about it. Fifteen year old Tony looked his age, all wide-eyed and innocent. His hair was always a mess, like he never once ran a brush through it. Sixteen year old Tony carries himself with a confidence that was never quite there before. Arrogance when it came to his intelligence, sure, but never a confidence like this. 

Eventually they fall back into their same old routines with relative ease. They eat pizza on Tony’s bed two nights a week, getting greasy fingerprints all over the controllers of the gaming console Tony brought with him. They go to their classes and suffer through homework and projects, and Tony sleeps through his alarm almost everyday. The student bar still serves the same cheap beer for their happy hour specials and doesn’t care that Tony isn’t pulling off his fake ID in the slightest, although he does it a little better now than before. Tony still clings to him during scary movies and breaks out his glasses whenever his contacts start to bother him. He still claims they’re the ugliest things in the world.

And everything would be fine, if Rhodey could just stop noticing things. 

Pizza isn’t quite the same anymore when Rhodey notices the way the grease from the pepperoni makes his lips shine, which draws his attention to the fullness of his bottom lip. Tony’s tank destroys his on the TV screen while he’s busy staring. 

At some point Tony decided to start sleeping shirtless, so when Rhodey has to shake him awake nearly every morning, he can’t help but notice the newly defined ridges of Tony’s abdomen. He catches himself watching as Tony pulls on his shirt and yanks a pair of jeans over his boxers before running out the door, and then he has to bury himself in his textbook to distract himself from the feeling in his stomach. 

When Tony gets drunk on pints of cheap beer, his cheeks flush pink and his laughter comes even easier than normal. He flirts with the girls around the bar, and a few of the guys, too, when he’s feeling bold. Nothing ever comes of it, not when Rhodey is there to make sure he gets home safely, but the sight of another guy’s hand on Tony’s arm makes Rhodey uncomfortable for reasons he doesn’t know how to put into words. 

When they go to the movie theater for their Halloween double feature of  _ Texas Chainsaw Massacre _ and  _ Friday the 13th _ , Tony hides his face in the folds of Rhodey’s jacket. His breath is warm against Rhodey’s neck, and Rhodey wraps a protective arm around his shoulders. 

“Tell me when it’s over,” Tony whispers, flinching when someone screams on the screen. Rhodey holds him a little tighter and quietly narrates the film for him so he doesn’t have to look again.

The glasses don’t really make much of an appearance anymore, and Rhodey asks about them while they’re cramming for finals at the library.

Tony shrugs, “I’m trying to force myself to get used to the contacts. Howard says the glasses are ‘unbecoming’ or whatever.”

“They’re cute,” Rhodey tells him before he can stop himself. Tony looks across the table at him through the thick frames. “I mean, I think they look just fine.”

When they get back from Christmas break, Rhodey notices that he’s stopped wearing the contacts around the dorm room. He comments on it only once, to remind Tony again that the glasses look good on him. Tony gets flustered, and Rhodey notices that, too. 

It keeps happening like that, until Rhodey stops trying to figure out why and just accepts it. Until noticing things about Tony is just something that he does, like breathing. 

“What’s the matter with you?” Tony asks him, licking away the last traces of syrup from his fork. 

Rhodey darts his gaze down to his own hands, folded in his lap. They’re at Tony’s favorite diner, eating Tony’s favorite meal of pancakes doused in syrup. 

“Nothing,” he says quickly. He picks his own fork back up, forcing down another bite. 

Tony eyes him suspiciously. “What’s the last thing I said?”

“Huh?”

“Exactly. You weren’t listening.”

He wasn’t, because how can he when Tony won’t stop licking his damn fork? But he knows Tony was talking about the bot he’s been working on before he zoned out a few minutes ago, and he’s willing to take a gamble that something is going wrong with the coding. 

“Your learning bot isn’t working right. Coding needs to be fixed.”

The risk pays off, and Rhodey wins a bright, syrupy sweet smile.

But it all comes to a head when Tony bursts into their dorm room one spring evening and announces, “I have a date tonight.”

The book falls from Rhodey’s hand right onto the floor. “What?”

Tony starts pacing the floor, talking animatedly with his hands. Rhodey loves it when he does that. Excitement always brings it out of him, and Rhodey isn’t even sure that he’s fully aware of it, and  _ oh, shit, Tony’s been talking this whole time.  _

“- I wasn’t even expecting it, because, you know, she never really gave me any signs that she was into me, but maybe she was and I just wasn’t paying attention. That’s possible, right?”

Tony stops walking and looks at him expectantly. 

“Uh, who are we talking about?”

“Elizabeth from robotics club. We’re going out tonight,” Tony says. He seems too distracted to notice that Rhodey was yet again not paying attention. “Oh, God, what do I wear?”

His eyes are wide and panic-stricken. “Rhodey, help, what do I wear?”

Rhodey, ignoring the pit forming in his stomach, stands up from the bed and places his hand on Tony’s arm. “Relax, Tones. Just put on your black jeans and that red shirt, and you’ll be fine.”

“What red shirt?” Tony frowns.

“The one with the star on the pocket.”

“Oh, yeah, okay,” Tony nods quickly. “That’s good. I can do that.”

Tony goes off to take a shower, spending a long time putting product into his hair to make it look like it hasn’t been touched. Rhodey stares uncomprehending at the pages of his book while Tony checks himself in the mirror for the hundredth time. 

“How do I look?”

Rhodey looks over the edge of the book, using it to cover the rest of his face. Tony’s jeans are molded to him, accentuating the roundness of his ass and toned muscles of his thighs. The top few buttons of the shirt are undone to reveal a hint of his collarbone. 

_ Perfect,  _ he thinks. Out loud, he says, “Good. She’ll love it.”

Tony grins, “Wish me luck, honeybear.”

It’s half-hearted when Rhodey replies, “Good luck. Don’t stay out too late.”

He does everything he can think of to distract himself while Tony is out doing God knows what with Elizabeth. But no matter how much homework he plows through, he can’t get his mind off of it. 

He doesn’t know Elizabeth well, but he’s met her before. She’s cute, with big blue eyes and platinum blonde hair that Tony probably likes. He bets they share a lot of the same interests, and she’ll laugh at all of his jokes. They’ll look good together. 

He doesn’t want to admit to himself that what he’s feeling is jealousy, because that means admitting that his feelings for Tony have shifted over the last year into something that is distinctly not friendship. But eventually he has to at least admit that friends don’t get upset when their friends have dates. 

Friends don’t sit around hoping that the date goes badly, and then feel immediately guilty for the thought.

At around ten, the door unlocks, and Rhodey quickly pretends to be engrossed in research for the term paper he’s writing. 

He sounds casual when he asks, “Hey. How was the date?”

“It was good,” Tony says. “She was - she was nice. But I, uh, I think I kind of blew it at the end.”

“Oh?”

Tony takes a seat on the edge of Rhodey’s bed, and Rhodey shifts his legs over to make space for him. 

“Do you remember what we talked about last year?”

“We talked about a lot of things, Tones. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

Tony bites his lip, staring down at the floor, “When I asked you about your first kiss.”

It takes Rhodey a second to place the memory, but he gets there soon enough. “Oh, yeah. You said you hadn’t had yours yet.”

Tony nods, “And I asked you to kiss me, but you said I was asking for the wrong reasons.”

Rhodey remembers telling him that he should kiss someone he likes, and his heart drops to the floor when he puts the pieces together. “So you kissed Elizabeth, then?”

“What?” Tony’s head snaps up, and he frowns. “Why would you think that?”

“I told you to kiss someone you like, and you like her, so…” Rhodey trails off, waving his hand through the air.

“No, I - we didn’t kiss.”

“You didn’t?”

Tony blushes pink and shakes his head, “Um, no. Almost, but I’m kind of waiting for someone else. She seemed pretty understanding when I told her, though.”

“Oh,” Rhodey says dimly. Someone else, which means he didn’t have a chance even before Elizabeth. 

“I know you told me to wait until I’m older, but I am older now, and the reasons were always right,” Tony says in a rush. “And I think that maybe you might want it, too. Because sometimes I catch you looking at me, and I think that maybe you feel the same way. But if you don’t, well, I guess I’m just hoping you won’t hate me for this, and I’m really sorry. And can you please say something?”

“I -” Rhodey falters, at a loss for words. “What are you talking about?”

Tony’s lip goes back between his teeth, pressing so hard it’s a wonder that it doesn’t draw blood. “I asked you to be my first kiss, and you said to ask again when I was older. Do you not remember that?”

He does, vaguely, though he doesn’t remember meaning anything by it. Now, though, he sends a quick message of thanks to his past self for letting this happen.

“You still want that?” 

Tony nods, “I always wanted it to be you.”

“And you like me?” Rhodey is trying desperately not to let himself hope too much, not until he hears Tony say it outright.

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

Rhodey smiles and teases, “I don’t know. It was kind of hard to tell with all the rambling.”

Tony shifts on the bed, sitting between Rhodey’s legs and grabbing his hands. He pulls on them until Rhodey is sitting up in front him, mere inches apart.

From this close he can smell the traces of body wash leftover from Tony’s shower. Sage and cedarwood -  _ Rhodey’s  _ body wash. 

Tony puts his hands on Rhodey’s shoulders, leans in even closer, and whispers, “Please don’t make me wait any longer.”

Well, how can he ignore a request like that? Cupping Tony’s cheek, he pulls him in the rest of the distance. 

It’s hesitant in the beginning. The angle isn’t quite right, and their noses bump. But he tilts his head and guides Tony to do the same. He can feel the exact moment that Tony stops thinking about it and just lets Rhodey lead him. Tony grows more sure of himself, and his arms wrap around Rhodey’s neck, but it stays gentle and slow. 

There’s a soft smile on Tony’s face when he pulls back. 

“We can do that again, right?”

Rhodey grins and leans forward again, pressing another kiss to Tony’s lips. 

“Any time you want.”


End file.
